At a recent debate with opponent Jeff Rosen hosted by the downtown San Jose Rotary Club, District Attorney Dolores Carr explained that the reason she has two PR spokespeople is for transparency. A mild guffaw broke out in the room.

Frankly, I’m glad she opened my eyes. I’ve wondered for a long time why Carr was willing to spend a quarter-million taxpayer dollars a year on two flacks when she cut the office’s cold-case unit. Now I know I’ve been too hard on her.

It’s about transparency! It’s about openness! It’s about accountability! You need at least two flacks to explain things the right way when the media tries to get it wrong. Compared with such a noble mission, who cares about a few tired old murders?

Never mind that ex-DA George Kennedy needed no flacks. When your biggest news is about cases you’ve backed away from — the De Anza rape case, the Ron Gonzales garbage indictment, the death penalty for DeShawn Campbell — you want to make sure things are crystal clear for the citizens.

Mind you, transparency doesn’t mean nakedness. You don’t want people talking out of school when your husband takes $14,000 from the family of a slain shopkeeper, even after you give the money back. A reporter should never, ever have your cell phone number until just before the election, when you’re in a fight for your life. And you can’t simply give in to the whims of a pesky media.

Media distortions

Here’s an example: Not long ago, the District Attorney’s Office held a press conference to explain efforts to fight workers’ compensation fraud.

Sheerly in the interests of transparency — it had absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming election — DA Carr agreed to have her name posted prominently on 21 billboards paid for by the state Department of Insurance.

So how did the media distort this selfless attempt at openness? The Mercury News ran a story suggesting strongly that the DA was taking advantage of the billboards to boost her campaign. Irrelevantly, the story noted that similar billboards last year against gang violence bore only the office name.

No. 2 Flack Nick Muyo rightly chewed out the reporter who wrote the story. Would she have people not know the name of the county’s top prosecutor? What kind of transparency is that?

A time for caution

You can never be too careful around the media. That’s why the DA has refused to open grand juries. That’s why her office declined to release files of the investigation into two San Jose land-use consultants who’d worked for Gonzales. That’s why she gave an award to Deputy DA Joanne McCracken for fighting attempts at Sunshine Task Force meetings to open police reports.

If you want to preserve transparency, you need to make sure the wretched scribblers don’t muck it up. You can understand why the DA’s office has been busier than ever lately in putting out the truth.

In the last week of April, the DA’s office issued a press release about professionals who help crime victims, two more about a project that helps the parents of troubled youths and yet another about internal awards in her office.

I call this a good investment in sunshine. People have a right to know what their public officials are doing. Don’t they?

Three women have told the New York Times that music mogul Russell Simmons raped them, the latest in a cascade of serious allegations of sexual misconduct against powerful men in entertainment, media, politics and elsewhere.